by Sabine Jaccaud

It started with fish. From a pet shop. We were about ten-ish, tweens, my brother and I. We brought home a couple of fish and put them in a big plastic bucket, in the bathtub. Clueless about fish care, but curious about fish in the flesh. We must have thought they were goldfish, considering their luminous orange scales, but they were longer and narrower. Within minutes of their entering bucket life, we found out they were jumpers. Propelling themselves high into the air. Mostly landing out of water, into the empty bathtub, onto the tiled floor. We used net curtains over the tub to hold them in, secured with string. Still, they did not last long.

The level-up from fish was turtles. Mini ones. We built a terrarium, with the right things this time, with a fish-shaped hurt now carving out the space to ask people for help, gather information. My brother had his turtle, I had mine. It was love. They ate, slept, roamed across the soil, pebbles, sticks and things we gave them. To spice up their enrichment, we added a small reversed plant pot, of the traditional terracotta type, with slanted sides and a small water drainage hole. It made a chimney-like space, with a rectangular entrance cut into its wider base to make a shelter, a cave. I certainly felt that shelter, even in this bathroom that had previously served as fish-home, was essential.

I must have taken my eye off the turtle for a couple of days. I could not find it in the open space, so I lifted up the pot. There it was, shell down, belly up, still. Those inclined walls had done the job of tripping up its climb to the light above, to the small hole. And tipping me into new territory.

I was, you see, the good girl. The good child. First born, breath held, doors inside the home opened at any time. Watched close. The carer-child. And from then on, the child with fresh awareness of her finite attention, the newly discovered ability to fail in meeting the needs of her responsibilities.

I can’t remember my turtle’s name. But I do remember the funeral. It was epic, solemn. And I conducted it alone, digging a mini grave, adding flowers, a handwritten letter, a begging for forgiveness. I lay the turtle to rest shell up, belly down. I may have even sung a song while adding a twig-cross to end the ceremony. All that privately, but also near the front door, so I would know of it every time I moved in and out of the house. Bad girl now, forever.

Sabine Jaccaud is a writer, communications professional, board director and educator. She lives in Los Angeles and is a Swiss national who spent most of her childhood in Africa and Asia, and her adulthood in England. She focuses her attention on collecting words and images that document the evolution of her relationship with place, either transient spaces or chosen homes. She is an alumna of the University of Geneva and Oxford University, where she wrote a doctoral thesis on the Postmodern city and memory. Sabine is invested in bringing her experience to the arts, our climate emergency and education.